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Jenson Button is the No. 1 driver at McLaren after Lewis Hamilton bolted for Mercedes after the 2012 campaign. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Despite the McLaren MP4-28 driven by Jenson Button being 0.9 second ahead of its nearest rival, Button played down the significance of the first day of Formula One testing in Jerez on Tuesday.

Button lost a lot of testing time to an early fuel-pump failure before setting an impressive quickest lap right at the end of the day. He did his time on Pirelli's harder compound tire.

“It's been pretty mixed today,” said Button on Tuesday. “The first day of testing, there's so much excitement within the teams and the paddock. For us, it was very short-lived, doing three laps this morning and having a fuel-pump issue. It's never what you want at the start of a test, but it's better to have it at the start I guess than the end of a test, so we can solve the issue.

“Got out this afternoon and did basic work for the aero testing, and then we were able to do some runs -- not long runs and not short runs either on different tires to just get a feel for the car -- and tweak things here and there in terms of feel. So, in terms of the feel of the car it's a nice starting point, but not the mileage we'd hoped for on the first day of testing.

“In terms of the way the car feels, there's nothing that stands out as, 'Wow, there's something we've got to work on there,' so it's a good base. I've already had the question whether it's a championship winning car. Who knows? The important thing is there's a nice feeling of the car.

“Lap times mean nothing right now; they don't even mean anything at the last test. It's when you get to the first race, and we'll have a very different car then as every team will, and that's when we really need to show how quick we are. Today's testing, and everyone's doing different things. The important thing is the car really does relate to the simulator, and that's something that's good.”

Told that Ferrari driver Felipe Massa had called Button's time of 1 minute, 18.861 seconds, 'incredible,' Button continued to play it down.

“To be honest, I was surprised when I saw it in the dash, but it doesn't mean anything,” Button said. “Some people run less fuel than others, some people run a lot more fuel than others, so who knows.”

Webber, who finished second with a best time of 1:19:789, said he was encouraged with the early form of the new Red Bull RB9 on the opening day of Formula One testing.

Webber set the second-quickest time of the day, behind Jenson Button. The car reliably, with the team saying it got through '90 percent' of the planned workload.

“It was pretty good,” said Webber. “As [Red Bull chief technical officer] Adrian [Newey] said at the launch, there haven't been big changes to the regulations this year and the car is an evolution of the one we finished with last season, so there were no big surprises. I think most of the drivers will sit back tonight and think today's times were pretty competitive.

“It was actually like a Friday practice session in some regards. We started understanding the tires and there were a lot of positives. There's a bit of housekeeping we have to get on top of but, other than that, it's been encouraging.

“The car feels similar to last year's, so the main difference is the tires. With these tyres you're always on your toes. It was good that we had consistent temperatures today, so we got a lot of information and feedback to analyze, which is all good. Generally though, the car feels pretty good, so I'm happy.”